


Worry

by otherstuff



Series: The Impact of Childhood [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: FTM Dean Winchester, Forcibly Stripped, Humiliation, Misgendering, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Other, Sexual Assault, Trans Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherstuff/pseuds/otherstuff
Summary: Dean is taken for a ride by some classmates who intend to tell him who he really is. John shows up to save him. Dean has to confront what kind of monsters are really out there.
Series: The Impact of Childhood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076093
Comments: 15
Kudos: 47





	Worry

**Author's Note:**

> Please take the warnings in the tags to heart.

Too-big eyes stared back at Dean in the motel mirror as he prodded and pulled at his cheeks. He pulled back his skin under his cheekbones to hollow them out back to his ears, noting how it made face look more angular before realizing that his chin was still too round.

He knew he managed to pass for a guy at school. The girls who fawned over him and the students and teachers alike who were never surprised to greet the “Dean” on their new rosters of students were evidence enough of that. Still, late at night when it was just him and Sammy in the relative silence of their motel room with nothing to do, he couldn’t help but let his mind drift to all of the ways in which he failed to be the man he’d long wished he’d grow into.

Part of him wondered if it was even worth the effort.

A tiny fist battered against the door, breaking his concentration alongside the cry of, “Dean!”

“Cool your jets, Sammy!” Dean barked back, his face snapping back to normal as soon as he pulled his hands away. He groaned, fingers clenched around either side of the sink under him as his eyes fell to the drain.

“Dean, there’s someone at the door!”

That had him curious enough to stand up, his gaze now on the bathroom door as he finally pulled it open and urged Sam inside.

“Lock yourself inside,” he mumbled, only to see Sam’s face screw with rebellion as he followed Dean to the door, albeit while very obviously hiding behind his older brother’s back.

Dean rolled his eyes as he grabbed a knife from the foot of his bed and asked, “Who is it?” in a voice just too loud.

“It’s Owen.”

It almost hurt how quickly his brow furrowed at the name as if his head was trying to wring out the information.

“Delancy?” he asked. “How did you find out where I live?”

“Wayne’s mom owns the place. Speaking of, you mind opening up so we can stop shouting? We don’t want her to know we’re here.”

Dean sighed, his gut turning at the idea of opening the motel door for anyone other than his father. It wasn’t just breaking John’s rules-  _ don’t let anyone other than me inside, don’t tell kids from school where we are, shoot first ask questions later- _ it was decimating every single one of them with one act.

He put down the knife anyway and carefully undid the chain, the deadbolt, and the latch above those. With all three locks and the door out of the way, he could see that Owen wasn’t alone. The previously mentioned Wayne stood behind him, along with two others from their school. He knew Wayne and one of the two whose names escaped him to be juniors from his class. The forth was a senior, along with Owen. The four probably only knew each other through the football team. They seemed to know Dean though, if the nameless senior’s low gaze that made Dean feel small was born of familiarity.

“What’d you wanna talk about?” Dean asked.

“We have something we wanna show you,” Owen said with a smirk. “It’s by Dead Drop Gorge, just five minutes or so into the mountains.”

Dean laughed, pushing the door open a bit more to lay casually against the wood. “A tour of the local scenery? Didn’t take you for the hospitable type.”

“Well maybe you took me all wrong.”

“Ain’t you the guy who dumped that seventh grader’s backpack into a trash can yesterday?”

“Are you a seventh grader?”

“No, but my brother is.” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Promised my dad I’d watch him tonight.”

Wayne stepped forward as he rolled his eyes with a groan. “It’s like he said, five minutes just north of town and we’re already on the edge. That’s like, what, ten minutes for a round trip? Twenty  _ tops _ if we do something stupid. You’ll be back in no time.” He leaned forward. “Believe me, you are  _ not _ gonna wanna miss this.”

Dean teetered on the precipice of his decision, rocking ever so slightly against the door as if literally taking a step backwards and forward while he hemmed and hawed between saying “yes” or “no.”

“You can go,” Sam’s voice cut through the silence as he appeared at Dean’s side. “I can watch myself for a while.”

“Sam, you know it’s not about that,” Dean said.

“Come on, Dean, you were watching me at my age.”

“Yeah, come  _ on, _ Dean,” Owen said, a mocking wine in his voice cut off with a laugh as Wayne shoved him to the side. “Let’s just go! We’ll beat your old man back. I promise.”

With a deep sigh and a spoonful of apprehension, Dean rolled his eyes and put on a loose smile. 

“Okay,” he finally said, allowing Wayne to clap him on the shoulder before he dove back inside to grab a coat. On his way out, he remembered to lean down to Sam and mumble, “Lock and salt the door while I’m gone.”

“Yeah yeah,” Sam said, shoving his brother toward the door. “Have fun with your friends.”

Dean smiled and laughed as he waved “Goodbye” to his younger brother and jogged after the group into the parking lot. They quieted as they rounded the building, not wanting to alert Wayne’s mom that her son was sneaking out, only to erupt into a chorus of jovial laughter as they took off down the road. The junior and senior Dean couldn’t name sang along to songs he didn’t know the words to, those songs being too new for his father’s music collection and only available on a radio, which the impala had been without for the past few months. He laughed along anyway when they held out a note for a dramatic length of time, or when Wayne eventually started an air guitar solo with Owen cackling in the driver’s seat.

It was a nice night.

When they started into the woods, he wrestled his elbows out from where he was sandwiched between the two no-names to lean over the console.

“So what exactly is waiting for us up at Dead Drop Gorge?”

Owen met his eyes in the rearview mirror with a chuckle. “Just you wait. You are  _ never _ gonna be the same after tonight.”

Wayne shoved him again, harder this time and without a chuckle, though there was that same ghost of a grin on his face.

“What?” Owen asked, shoving him back only to return his eyes to the road. “It’s the truth- we’re gonna get some answers to some burning questions, and we’re hoping you can answer some of your own.”

He winked at Dean in the mirror, causing him to avert his eyes and fall back between the football players and against the seat. He supposed he would just have to wait for the surprise.

It was hard to have patience, his curiosity only mounting as the trail lights became few and far between the further they got into the woods. By the time they reached the gorge, they were on a dirt road, far from the quiet bustle of the small town.

When Owen pulled the car to a stop, the only thing left to illuminate the small clearing at the top of the gorge was the car’s headlights. Its yellow eyes stared out, Dean taking the time to stretch when the junior slid out from his side. He only realized his mistake when, instead of leaving the door open for Dean himself or simply closing it behind him, Junior took the time to set the sedan’s child lock.

His eyes stayed on the door when it closed, and he could almost feel the immovable lump in his throat bob as he swallowed around it as well as the nervous laughter bubbling in his chest.

“So,” he drew out the word, using it to focus and calm himself as he again asked, “what are we out here to see?”

Owen grinned where he’d turned around in his seat.

“You.”

The senior was on him in the next second, twisting them around so that his full weight was on Dean and forcing him to lay down. He kicked out, his boots scrambling against the car door until it opened. He hadn’t kicked it open, of course, it was intentionally opened by Owen and Wayne. Their chuckles rose over Dean’s panicked grunts and yelps as ne he held back a plea for the senior to let him go. He knew it would only be ignored, at best. At worse, it would only make the boys on him laugh harder.

“Like we said,  _ Dean,”  _ Owen said his name as if he were humoring him as he leaned against the door frame, “we have some burning questions. Some questions like, ‘What kind of guy hits on every girl in school but doesn’t sleep with any of them?’ and ‘What kind of guy- who’s obviously an idiot- only seems to skip  _ gym _ when it’s the only class we can realistically see him pass?’ The guys and I, we threw around some ideas as to what it could be that would make this guy do this. Then we realized- that guy, that wears two flannels and a jacket to school every day with the boots  _ obviously  _ too big for his feet… the one that talks like he gargled a cup of gravel instead of using a real voice- it might not be a guy at all.”

Panic flashed in Dean’s eyes, and his nerves succumbed, letting through a few desperate chuckles.

“You’re- you’re kidding me! That’s insane. Look, just let me go, I’ll find my own way back and we’ll be sq-  _ aah!” _

He cut himself off with a sharp screen when the Senior twisted around Dean’s torso, his legs pinning down both of Dean’s arms as they forced him to sit up in the back seat against the football player’s chest. Laughter turned to hyperventilating as he shook his head, his kicks slowing until he curled his legs up in front of him, intent on not letting any of the remaining boys get a hold of them.

Part of him wished he could fuse them together- anything to prevent what he knew would come next.

“Don’t do this,” his voice shook, and he had to steady himself to add a weak,  _ “please.” _

Owen shushed him as Junior rounded the car. He dove past Wayne, grabbing a hold of one boot only for the other one to instinctively kick at his hand.

He didn’t relent, Wayne grabbing his other leg while they took the time to drag his boots off. He still fought after that, his shoulders straining under the legs still holding him against the car seat while he howled like a wild animal that had been caught in the most inhumane trap.

They started on the pants next, just grabbing the base and yanking until the belt that held the just-baggy-enough jeans in place gave and revealed his hips. His boxers almost came off with them when they gave a final tug, Dean to again hold his legs together and turn his face into his shoulder as he wished for anything to save him in that moment.

Instead, he had to work to save his own skin, wrenching his legs away when Owen grabbed the band of his boxers, only getting them half of the way down his thigh on the one side. He wrestled with them like that for a moment before Wayne and Junior got tired of the suspense, grabbing onto either of his ankles and forcing his legs to straighten.

His boxers, the final barrier between him and his attackers, was pulled away.

Wayne actually gasped, “I can’t believe it-!”

“Fucking  _ knew it!” _ Owen cackled as Junior wolf whistled behind him.

“Stop it!” Dean yelled, more insistent this time as he wrestled one of his legs back. “Why are you doing this!?”

“Like I said,  _ Dena,  _ we just wanted some answers. Now that we have them, well… I think we’ve only made things more confusing.” He shared a look with Junior and Wayne before they started laughing again, the senior’s own laughter vibrating through his chest and along Dean’s back.

“Yeah, don’t act like we’re monsters or anything. You’re the one pretending to be a boy. What’s wrong? Something throw you off about being a lesbian?”

“Maybe she doesn’t wanna be a lesbian,” Wayne said.

“I’m not a lesbian!” Dean yelled, aiming a kick at Wayne’s stomach only for him to dodge with another laugh.

“See! Maybe she just wants to be straight but is going about it all wrong.”

“Yeah,” the senior holding him laughed, bringing down a hand to stroke along Dean’s cheak. “Even the carpet munchers won’t go for you if you keep up with this shit. Ya just need a guy to treat you right.”

Dean managed to pull himself up just a bit, almost snapping his teeth around the senior’s fingers before he was again pressed into the seat.

“Maybe we can help with that,” Owen said under the murmuring laughter, causing Dean to fall still. “First thing’s first, though, we gotta make sure you can’t run and hide as a guy again. It’s really for your own good. Wayne, get the camera.”

Dean’s nose wrinkled as he pulled his legs back for the third time, Junior already holding them down by the time Wayne produced a dingy digital camera.

The bright flash lit up the backseat, cementing the moment in reality for Dean. With his arms still bound and his legs held in place, he could only attempt to shield his face from the flash. He wasn’t very successful, especially when the senior moved his head forward.

He could look down his own torso, the flannels and his coat having fallen away in the scuffle as well as being literally held down along with his arms. Thus he could see his slightly rounded chest and his mound just over that. He was entirely exposed for the boys to see.

Whatever their suspicions, they knew for sure now that he wasn’t one of them. That is to say, they didn’t think he was, and he certainly wasn’t in a place to dispute that. He stopped fighting eventually just going limp even after Junior let him go.

“Aw, she looks so upset,” Wayne said. “We’re just thinking about  _ you _ here, Dena. Don’t you want to live your life? Like- your  _ real  _ life?”

“Look at you, Mr. Philosopher,” Owen laughed before shoving Wayne on the shoulder. “I don’t know about any ‘real life’ shit, I just know you’ll probably be a lot happier once you have a dick in you.”

“Hey,” the senior said, drawing everyone’s attention and giving Dean the quickest flash of hope that was dashed away when he continued, “How am I supposed to get my turn if I’m the one holding her?”

“Chill out,” Wayne said, “Once she’s been on one or two trips with the  _ real thing,  _ she’ll be begging everyone for a ride.”

Junior chuckled. “Or you could take her mouth if you’re not afraid of her biting your junk off.”

The group laughed at the joke, Wayne stepping forward to mock-gasp and add, “Guys- what if that’s what happened here! Maybe she’s a guy after all!”

Still laughing, the senior managed to chortle, “Yeah, guys! Show some respect!”

Under their uproar of laughter, Dean began to just lay down where he was still pressed into the back seat. Anything but relaxed, he still found himself going limp as Owen straightened up and began to undo his pants. There was nothing Dean could do. He couldn’t even fight back, much less win.

He tried to imagine a scenario where he got himself out of this situation- of wrestling the arms off of him with a sudden, inhuman strength and swinging the senior holding him down over his head out of the car. Maybe he’d hop into the driver’s seat and get to the motel.

Maybe he’d come back with a gun and waste these low lives.

The more he thought about it, the more sick and powerless he felt. He didn’t have super strength, much less the strength to drive himself all the way to the motel in this state. Not to mention that would involve him coming home without any pants and facing Sam-

That was when he felt the tears coming on.

So, instead of some fantasy where he could handle all of this on his own, he imagined these goons getting what they deserved.

He thought of the wraith he’d only read about in his father’s research sucking out and draining their life force as easily as the color had drained from his face in their photos.

He thought of the werewolf he’d fought with his dad in Connecticut tearing through the boys, pulling them apart as easily as Owen tore into him.

More than that, he thought of his dad coming to save him.

That thought grew vivid as the noise around him died out. Ringing filled his ears, and the image of his father rose behind the boys. He first grabbed Wayne by the front of his coat only to knock him to the ground with one punch. Junior fell around the same time, presumably from shock, before scuttling back.

John let him wander off, all too focused on Owen.

It was when the senior turned around to fight with the child lock previously meant to imprison Dean that he realized this wasn’t a dream. His father was here. He was here, and he was  _ pissed. _

John wrenched Owen back by the coat collar, casting him to the ground before kicking him in the side of his ribs. By the time he was done with that, the senior had given up on the lock, dumped Dean on the floor of the car, and scuttled out to meet John just as he turned around. A big, mean looking motherfucker, he didn’t back down or attempt to let this go easy. He raised his fists and made a swipe for John’s head. He missed spectacularly, flying forward from his overly telegraphed punch only for John to grab him around the torso and twist him onto the ground, too.

He stomped once on the side of his head, his face screwed with anger as he considered doing more damage. Stumbling back, as if having to literally pull himself out of the situation, he raked his hands down his face to collect himself before finally turning back to where his son had curled up in the back seat of Owen’s car. He’d pulled his pants pulled from the ground and into his lap as he sat with his head over the back of the seat, unwilling to meet his father’s eyes.

“Dean,” he said, stooping slightly into the doorframe to pull his face into his worn hands. “Dean look at me, are you okay?”

“Don’t l-” Dean hiccupped trying to stop the tears that were already streaming down his face. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t have enough strength to properly say the words as much as gasped and choked them out.

John shushed him and pulled him close for a moment, taking a few steady breaths before pulling back with his hands moving from Dean’s face to his shoulders.

“Get dressed. Get dressed, we’re getting out of here, okay?”

Dean nodded numbly, not really moving as John gathered his shoes and- and  _ God _ his  _ boxers _ from the ground as if he were a child again that still needed his dad to pick up his clothes from the hotel room to make sure they didn’t leave anything behind.

Still he stayed on the back seat until John moved to shut the door and Dean put both of his hands up to stop him with a yelp.

“Don’t close it,” he pleaded.

Logically, he knew John wouldn’t leave him there, and that he was only trying to give him back some of the privacy that had been stolen, but logic wasn’t the deciding voice right then and there. Dean didn’t want to be left alone- locked in that car.

John seemed to understand, nodding as he turned his back.

Instead, he regarded the four boys on the ground. Of all the monsters he’d hunted, he never thought it’d be the one he hadn’t researched that would come for his boys.

His son.

He reached behind his torso, subconsciously reaching for the gun tucked into his waistband before sighing and instead dropping his hands at his sides. He pursed his lips, nostrils flaring as he forcibly rolled Owen onto his back.

“Listen here, you little shit, if I  _ ever _ catch you near my son again-” He looked in the direction of the Junior, who had frozen in his attempt to get away, “if you think you’ll get away with this, you are  _ sorely _ mistaken. I’m taking my son home, and then I’m gonna lead the cops back up here, where you’ll all  _ wait patiently _ for your dues- do you understand me!?”

Owen’s lip quivered with something between hesitancy and incredulous rage as he rose to one knee. Blood streaked from his nose as he spat, “She came with us, man! We didn’t force her into the car! She knew what was up!”

John snatched him by the collar and dragged him all the way up to eye level. “You wanna run that by me again?” he asked, voice dropping into a low growl.

“Dad,” Dean said, stopping himself before he said anything else in his broken voice as he emerged from the car, his boxers hidden away in his pocket in his rush to get his pants on, his boots untied, and his shoulders hunched forward even as he drew attention to himself. “Dad, let’s just go.”

John’s voice softened, “Of course.” He dropped Owen to the ground, producing a knife from the inside of his coat. “I just have to make sure of something first.”

Rather than turn the knife on any of the shivering boys, he stalked over to Owen’s sedan and stuck the knife in the front tire, dragging it to the side. He did the same to the back tire, none of the boys making a peep as he did such. They were long gashes, not the kind that would allow a tire to protect the rims for any distance. This would be especially so if they were planning on driving on a rough, dirt path down a mountain side.

“Don’t want you forgetting that you’re getting what’s coming to you, and that there’s no running from it.” He didn’t waste a moment more after that, putting an arm around Dean and steering him away from the lip of the gorge, the car, and the monsters in human skin.

Dean stopped him before they got too far away, a hand on John’s chest

“What is it?” his father asked, dropping his voice to something barely more than a whisper.

Dean averted his eyes and tried to find the words to explain why he’d stopped, part of his body still trying to take him far away from here. Finally, he managed to point at the camera laying in the mud where Wayne had dropped it once John had gotten the jump on him.

He picked it up with dark eyes- tossing it once in his gloved hand before sneering at the boys again.

For the last time, he turned away and led Dean off by the shoulders, gently leading him to where he’d parked not too far down the slope.

John continued to treat him gently as Dean settled into the passenger’s seat of the impala. This was his home away from home. More than the motel, this was safety. He took what his father was handing to him without really looking at it. Only after John shut the door did he realize his father had laid his wool coat over him, and he allowed himself to settle back into the seat. 

Its leather seats cradled him where he was all but smothered in the fabric of Owen's backseat. He could still feel the weight of the senior’s legs on his arms as he nestled into the makeshift blanket. He didn’t even notice when John had gotten into the car. What finally shocked him into focus was the sight and sound of the camera being set onto the dashboard.

“Let’s get you back to the motel.”

“No,” Dean said too quickly, his lips trembling as he fought another wave of emotion.

“We can go somewhere else if you want, but we have to get Sammy first, and I’d like to talk about this.”

“I don’t want Sammy-” Dean stopped to suck in a breath, his head falling back against the seat as his voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”

Dean didn’t look at his father, instead holding his breath as his heart swelled with anticipation. He only allowed himself to breathe again when John said “Okay, I’ll see what I can do about that,” and started the car down the mountain.

The drive back to the motel felt both too short and excruciatingly long between Dean dipping in and out of that dream-like state where he didn’t quite notice that his father didn’t play any music in what was usually a very noisy car. When they pulled into the motel parking lot, John laid a hand on Dean’s from where it stuck out from underneath his dark coat.

He squeezed his hand once and said, “Wait one second, okay?” before disappearing into the lobby.

Alone in the car, Dean thought he’d feel the same anxiety he’d felt when John almost closed him into Owen’s back seat. Instead, in the impala, he felt safe. Even without John, it only took sinking back into the passenger’s seat and lowering it to shield him from the outside world for Dean to feel truly at ease in the familiar space.

When John did return, he knocked on the passenger window first, prompting Dean to open the door and stick his tear-streaked face into the night air.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

John Winchester wasn’t a bad liar.

On the contrary, he was a  _ fantastic _ liar. It seemed that, no matter how good he was, there was no way to convincingly fake the smile he so desperately smeared across his lips as he gingerly helped his son out of the car by the arm.

He continued to guide Dean, who’d resigned himself to the idea of Sam seeing his older brother torn apart and hastily stitched together, toward the motel rooms without a fight. When Dean finally looked up to the door John was unlocking, he noticed the number was one off.

“Dad, this isn’t our room.”

“It’s yours,” John said. “It’s the adjoining room, so I can check on you both in the night, but I figured… if there was ever a time you deserved some privacy.”

Dean’s lips pursed as his fists clenched around the edges of his father’s coat.

“You didn’t…”  _ You didn’t have to do that. _

John opened the door, and as if he could hear the unsaid words, he answered, “You can choose to tell Sammy about this one day, if you want. It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

Dean was ushered inside to see a mirror of the motel room they’d been staying in for the past few days- the beds on the left of the room instead of the right and the door to the adjoining room now on the right instead of the left.

The door clicked shut behind him, John deftly fixing all three locks into place and attempting to open the door out of habit- just to make sure that it was shut- before he crossed to that other door. He had to open the one to the room they were in before he could knock on the second. “Sammy, open up. I found him.”

Sam opened the second door as if he’d been waiting right behind it, though his brow was creased with confusion as to why his brother and his father would be waiting in the other motel room than coming in from the outside as he’d expected them to. Still, he attempted to leap past his father and straight for his missing brother, only to be clothinglined by John’s arm and gently coaxed back into the other motel room.

“He needs a minute, Sammy. You can see him tomorrow,” John said, his voice sweeter than Sam could ever remember it being.

“Dad don’t- it was okay! I didn’t get hurt! I just wanted him to have fun with his friends!”

John held up a hand, effectively silencing his younger son.

“It’s not like that. He’s not in trouble.”

That was all Dean heard before his father closed the door.

He considered going through the effort of eavesdropping on his family- figuring out what story John was spinning to make Sam more comfortable with leaving Dean in another room for the night, and if he’d have to keep up the lie for tomorrow- but fatigue won out when he weighed his options, pulling him onto the closest bed. He didn’t even have the strength to fight the comforter under him to get it on top, instead choosing to use his father’s coat as a blanket for just a little longer.

His boots fell off- still unlaced and still a size and a half too big for him.

He must have looked more ridiculous in them than he thought if those goons had noticed.

Tears started up again, quieter this time as they trickled down his face and turned the blanket under him wet and sticky around his face. It made him feel gooey and sick. It made him want to go numb all over again.

He sprung up when the door reopened, John having returned with a set of bed clothes that he held out like a peace offering as he shut the door.

“I just called a cop car. They’re gonna swing by here, and I’ll take them up north and get this taken care of,” he said.

“Do we have to?”

“Well, of course we do.” He walked around the other bed, sitting so that he was across from Dean. “Don’t you want them to face consequences for- for what they did?”

“Police’ll-” Dean stopped, his mouth opening wide before he snapped it shut. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know you don’t…” John reached out for Dean’s shoulder only for his son to dodge the attempt at comfort. He pulled his hand back. “I know you have secrets, Dean. It’s like I said- someone like you will have a lot of secrets to keep all your life, and I’m not an expert on what those are. It’s just that this shouldn’t be something you keep to yourself.”

“But the police won’t listen unless I tell them the truth.”

“You won’t have to lie about anything,” John said. “That Owen kid was blowing smoke, and you know it as well as I do. Even some hick cops could see that.”

“Yeah, but those h- ‘hick cops’ won’t protect a  _ boy.  _ It’ll go on a record, and all of that work Bobby did to help with my name and my school records- and- and the-”  _ the pictures  _ “everyone will know I’m a bitch who got  _ raped.” _

“Dean-!” John didn’ let him pull back anymore, pulling himself over to the other bed as well as taking his son into his side. “Dean, you’re  _ spiralling.  _ It’s not gonna get that far, it’ll all be okay.”

“It will get that far,” Dean took in a shuddering gasp as he tried to keep from sobbing into his father’s chest. “I’m gonna have to be a girl again just so that they’ll  _ stop.” _

“You’re not a girl.” John threaded his fingers through the back of Dean’s hair with one hand and rubbed small circles into his back with the other. “You were never a girl, and you’ll never be one… four monsters thinking with their cocks ain’t gonna change that.”

“Dad…”

Whatever protests Dean was preparing were cut off with a pained, muted sob that rattled in his chest and ended in a fit of coughing as John patted between his shoulders.

“I know you’re scared, Dean, but I don’t know how else to help you. You can’t just…  _ I  _ can’t let them do this to you. It’s either this or-”  _ or I’ll  _ kill _ them myself  _ “or I don’t know what I can do to help you.”

Silence settled in the room much as a heavy blanket would over your face. Their words had been attempts at fighting it off- keeping it from smothering them- but now they let it cloak them as a father who just wanted to shut the world out so that his son could rest and the very son, who found himself too tired to sleep in his father’s arms.

Dean poked through the silence with the words, “I’m sorry I left Sammy.”

“Don’t worry about it,” John almost  _ cooed,  _ pressing an awkward kiss to Dean’s head and holding him closer. “Please, don’t worry about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I intended to never post this because it's just stupid vent writing but whatever- ~~might delete later if people find it too upsetting so let me know if that's the case I guess.~~
> 
> Edit: I "crossed out" the note about deleting this after getting just a few comments telling me it is/could be helpful. I didn't realize that stories like this could be useful to other people, but I guess those who prefer reading to writing deserve a place to project onto Dean Winchester, too.


End file.
